Record number of minors entering the US illegally

Laura Ingraham reacts to new report showing record number of minors crossing US border illegally

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," May 29, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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O'REILLY: "Week in review from "The Ingraham Angle Segment" tonight. A report from Reuters saying that minors are sneaking into the USA from Mexico in record numbers -- apparently illegal immigrants under the age of 18 are coming over; the news agency says 60,000 this year alone as opposed to 6,000 in 2011.

Joining us now from Washington Miss Laura Ingraham -- So what do you think is going on here?

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think a couple of things, Bill. Number one, the President has made it clear that they are working on a plan, the administration, to even further decrease the number of interior deportations in our country. So, very few people will end up being deported in the future if all goes according to their plan. So that's number one.

Number two, I think a lot of folks in central America, Mexico, they are hearing about this grand immigration bargain, and I guess they mistakenly think that will give them some benefit if they come here, if their children are here, even though DHS today, Department of Homeland Security today, said "Well, these new people rushing the border wouldn't even be eligible for any new benefits or any new immigration reform package anyway so they shouldn't come."

So there are a lot of enticements to come here right now. And I think both parties, Republicans led by Eric Cantor and people like John McCain and Lindsey Graham, they want to get something done on immigration reform. same with President Obama, same with the Homeland Security Department.

So there's a collective signal. It's kind of a big Bienvenidos mat at the border saying, you know, come in. And I think it's going to have calamitous effects to our -- potentially our national security, our humanitarian crisis with all these children who are unaccompanied what do we do with them do we send them home to nobody in Mexico. Do we send them to illegal immigrant in the United States which apparently is happening?

Obviously the economic effects that you and I have discussed with the depression of wages in this country and obviously taking job opportunities from working class whites, blacks and Hispanics who are legally in the country right now.

So big, big problems and it's kind of a perfect storm.

O'REILLY: All right. Now I was a little suspect of the report from Reuters because Reuters is a very left wing news agency. You know and they cited, you know a three-year-old came here and what people should understand is it's smuggling rings that do this.

INGRAHAM: Sure.

O'REILLY: They take the children. They charge money and I guess adults pay some money. They bring the children across the border. And then the children either are told they have relatives somewhere, you know, to try to get there or maybe their brother, you know, the three-year-old has a 15-year-old brother and they try to get whatever.

INGRAHAM: Sure.

O'REILLY: But whatever it is, as you rightly pointed out it's a humanitarian crisis. You get 60,000 people under the age of 18. How they could get through the border --

INGRAHAM: Right.

O'REILLY: -- is astounding to me after all of this time. And we do in some sectors have very good, very stringent border control. But apparently they are in Big Ben National Park in these places that are very rural.

INGRAHAM: Right.

O'REILLY: And they are sneaking across and all of that.

INGRAHAM: And the report tonight, Bill, that now we are so overwhelmed by this, it literally is an invasion of people crossing into Texas. Texas doesn't have the facilities to deal with these people. I mean I don't know why they are not immediately turned back to Mexico. They are not being and some of them have actually been brought to Phoenix and Tucson and left at bus stations.

I don't know if they have bus fare or what but this is a new report out tonight and so they are being dropped off in Phoenix because they can't be handled in Texas and -- and I would say, Bill, does our government not have a responsibility to enforce our border to secure our sovereignty and to make sure that we're still a country?

O'REILLY: I don't know. I mean look it's such a big border. Look, they shut it down.

INGRAHAM: They don't want to enforce the border, Bill.

O'REILLY: I'm not sure about that.

INGRAHAM: They do not want to enforce this border.

O'REILLY: I'm not sure about that.

INGRAHAM: We are incapable of being a country anymore? We can't be a country?

O'REILLY: Well I have always said that you can do it. But look, in Tijuana, in San Diego, San Ysidro, they managed to shut it down. They have trickle of what they used to have there. All right? Then you go into Imperial County, California, it's not quite as stringent.

INGRAHAM: Right. It's like 15 miles, right? It's like a 15-mile spot. Look, Bill, if we wanted to handle this problem.

O'REILLY: I think we could.

INGRAHAM: We wouldn't give drivers' licenses to people. Wouldn't give them in-state tuition. We wouldn't be calling them dreamers. We would be doing what most other countries do on the face of the planet. We would be securing our sovereignty and focusing on our beleaguered workforce, our beleaguered citizenry first and foremost before we even entertained any discussion of any type of regularization of the people who are here illegally now. This is -- this issue is at a tipping point in this country. I believe the establishment has way overplayed its hand. And I see -- I think what you are seeing in Britain with the rise of the frustration and the anger about the immigration problem there, I think that's going to come to the United States big time. I don't think the establishment is ready for it.

O'REILLY: They might -- they might be a backlash here because obviously you're not going to get immigration reform done this year. In an election year that's not going to happen. I think the Republicans will have to put up something that say look, this is our vision but it will be much smaller than the senate version.

But the children are an interesting situation because then you are going to have all the human rights groups.

INGRAHAM: Well the emotional play.

O'REILLY: Right. And it's emotions. Just look at these kids and you can't -- what are you going to do.

INGRAHAM: Right and Bill, the tears -- the tears of the illegal immigrants coming here, I mean yes, it is heart wrenching. But as a country, if we are still a nation, we must address the economic calamity that is facing our middle class. Those tears, those concerns have to be addressed first and foremost. And I think those people are the ones who should get the focus of Washington not all these people who decide our laws don't really matter in the first place.

O'REILLY: All right, Laura Ingraham, everybody. There she is.

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